FROM OKINAWA WITH LOVE

Dorota Quiroz "I'm going to Japan Selfie" 2014

About year ago, I decided to answered a call from a strange and distant land - Japan. Twelve long months in Japan flew by like a violent wind blow on Okinawa's coast line, shaken up my wild hair of assumptions, torn off my scarf of expectations and knocked me down to my knees laughing loudly at my attempts to understand it.
   

Dorota Quiroz "Okinawa Map" 2014

I don't understand Japan, yet... or to be more specific, I don't understand its distant younger sister, Okinawa, yet. I have been having a travel affair with her for over memorable 10 months now and we went through all typical phases of a typical relationship:

 

Dorota Quiroz "Okinawa Dancer" 2014

INFATUATION (August -September 2014)

Okinawa was alluring, exciting, fresh, different and strange at the beginning. She awed me with her curvaceous landscape and slender lines of ocean horizon. She smiled with glorious sunrises and cried with unexpected rain tears of a summer day. She blew delicious kisses of evening breeze and hugged my eyes goodnight with masterpieces of color. I wanted to smell her scent on me, taste her exotic flavor when I licked my lips and be in a constant physical contact. I just could not get enough of her.

                   

Dorota Quiroz
"Clover Field on the top of mountain" 2015

LUST (October 2014)

My lustful cravings to be outdoors were feverish and I just wanted to become one with her and devour her without anything holding me back. No inhibitions or worries to get caught. I wanted to corner her somewhere in a cave or behind the jagged edge of the huge boulder sticking out of shoreline and to make love to her loud and hard. This desire to take Okinawa and make it mine was like a primordial force in me, reviving my instincts and turning me into a wild beast. She was so beautiful... she belonged to me, she should have been mine!

Dorota Quiroz "Fisherman Wife's Dreams" (after Hokusai) 2014

                                                          POWER STRUGGLE (November - December 2014)

Despite my animal-like wanderlust drive, she wouldn't subdue and fold submissively into my arms. She was fighting me back, scratching my feet with sharp edges of rocks and burning my skin with relentless scorching sun. Always unpredictable, permanently surprising, she would give me those sarcastic, defiant looks, warning me constantly not to get too comfortable and complacent.  She would play tricks on me when diving, playing with pressure, equipment or just my nervse. Once a while she would slap me on my cheek to remind me that she was in charge and not the other way around.

Dorota Quiroz "Mongoose vs. Habu" 2014

Dorota Quiroz "Ie Island" 2015

BETRAYAL (January - March 2015)

I gave her all of it: my time, dedication, and passion and without any hesitation she threw it all away. She got cold, bitchy and distant. She would ignore my calls when I was not working to come out and see me - must have sent 1000 pleas trying to entice her to come out and show her bright smile to me. When I would finally reach her, she would greet me with chilly awkward hugs followed by dramatic weeping full of stingy cold tears. She knew I needed her and she was toiling with my fragile state. I needed to be with her in her warm loving arms, exploring her beauty but she was the ultimate queen of ice. I don't know how I survived this stage, it was very hazy and depressing.

Dorota Quiroz " Bloody toe!" 2015

COMPROMISE (April 2015)

Finally, she snapped out of her bad mood, and one sunny day, after a delicious seafood lunch by the sea, she came back to me. I forgave her her coldness and took her right back without any hesitation. I needed her bright smile, her positive outlook on life, the rough edges of her adventurous character and mischievous and capricious humor. I needed her to breath normally and to be myself again.

Dorota Quiroz "Kayaking Okinawa" 2015

COMPANIONSHIP (May - June 2015)

Dorota Quiroz "Waiting patiently for his surfing buddy" 2015

We became best of friends, guessing each other thoughts and finishing each other sentences. I could never predict her mood the next day but mine would be always good because I knew I would see her, event for a short 30 minutes. Inseparable on weekends, our rendezvous would turn into never-ending marathons of companionship. By foot, car, bike, or boat, I would travel as far as I could to meet her in our new secret places and she would whisper in my ear the sweet secrets of her past and her hopeful dreams for the future.

Dorota Quiroz "Pure joy" 2015

Is it a everlasting love? I don't know yet... She mentioned to me that she had many Okinawa lovers, some American ones too. The time will only show if we are made for each other... but I can positively  say I am excited when I think I'm going back for another 10 months to see her again...

Dorota Quiroz "Mellow Yellow" 2015

I came back and I know I missed her. I couldn't wait to see special spots I have been to and familiar corners that gave me relief to take a deep breath and be thankful that I'm back in Okinawa again...

Dorota Quiroz " Sunrise" 2015

Dorota Quiroz
"Golden Afternoon" 2015 

Dorota Quiroz "Sunrise at Tangen" 2015 

MY SEARCH FOR TERRA NOVA

Beekman Bacardi Mojito

Here I am on the road again, craving it and fearing it at the same time.   With such a short turn around time between my last trip to Greenville and going to Boston, I wasn't able to actually sit down, think about and analyze my recent travel experiences. I will write about it soon but now, I would like to focus about the contradiction the travel experience creates for me... 

When I travel or are about to leave for a new destination my emotions often take over my rationality. At least for a while... The seltzer of excitement and anticipation of a new is poured over with the double shot of fear and stirred well with mulled leaves of fresh anxiety. I taste this delicious mojito drink every time it had out of door! It is because I know what a great time I'm going to have and because I know how many things could go wrong. The battle of known and unknown, expected and unexpected, comfortable and uncomfortable is about to begin!



I think the meaningful travel is about stepping out of your comfort zone and experiencing and dealing with things outside of your normal daily habits. The daily routines keep our learning and discovering life on an automatic drive, commanding our mind and senses to mundane tasks and dull tastings. When our mind gets bored... we crave to change our venue and provide it with fresh unknown reality to explore. The old-self, physical and emotional part, wants to hold on to comfort and safety that every day routines provide, but the mind and the spirit want and need more to go on, and they are willing to sacrifice comfort and safety in order to revive discovery and self-search.

P. Bertius "Map of Newfoundland Coast", Amsterdam, 1598-1608
Source: Jonathan Potter Maps

I go because I want to discover things for myself even though they were discovered by many others. I always wonder if there is any travel left today where one could still go on an expedition of uncharted territory, the TERRA NOVA? Probably scientific research could provide such experiences, or maybe possibly the competition-like record-oriented expeditions, but just because my travel-oriented discoveries don't contribute to the greater knowledge of human species it doesn't mean that it doesn't contribute to MY knowledge and understanding of the world. 

Such selfish experience of enriching my mind through travel is as valid as any other research-based discovery that will benefit a larger group. It can have a major influence on our creative production, what we think, how we interact with other people and influence our community when we get back from our journeys. 

I know from my own personal experience that it doesn't matter the distance I traveled - I'm never the same person when I return home. I just discovered my Terra Nova and my mind is trying to process all the information I have discovered. The real question is... what am I going to do with it?

MY DAD - MY HERO

Dear Dad, I wrote this narrative especially for you! Your love and support throughout my life made me feel like I was the most beloved daughter in a whole wide world and I thank you for that.  

I love you and HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

 

FATHER'S LOVE

There was never more devoted father to his daughter since the beginning of time... 

When she was born, she was so tiny and fragile that it seems she would fall apart like a smoke through his hands. Her weak and vulnerable body bent dangerously, ready to snap under the pressure of his kissing lips or disperse like a dandelion seeds in a wind, when he put his nose next to her neck to inhale her sleepy smell. 

His adoration of her was his Easter Sunday mass on any average weekday. 

He announced her importance with stubborn clicks of his camera, recording reflections of light in her eyes, capturing the glistening of reddish highlights in her limp hair. The stacks of photos were his painter's swatches, a composite portrait of grimaces, moods, expressions, mimics and reactions. 

He believed that she was given to him as a guiding ray of light for his own dismantled life. She had the power to put him back together, glue back all the broken pieces of his mangled spirit, shattered by poverty and aimless existence. 

With her birth on a cold November day, like a lifelong cripple who finally touched the tip of the holly statue, he miraculously stood up on his own two feet, able to climb unforeseen monstrous peaks of the highest kind in order to fulfill his obligation of a saved sinner. She was his second chance at life, like an unexpected release from a prison after life-long sentence for a heinous crime . 

He was her bodyguard. 
He would fight for her to his last shallow breath, sheltering her glowing face from the blue shade of sad trees. 
He would defend the greenery of her eyes from mean dusty wind.
He would silence obnoxious crows and canaries alike from muffling her shimmering laughter.  
He was her devoted slave and an obedient servant, refusing to run away, if his freedom was granted and begging to stay, if it wasn't. 

He was the connoisseur of her likes and things that made her cringe, yet it has never prevented him from introducing new flavors, ideas and experiences to enrich her world.

He was her tour guide who encouraged his patron to leave no stone overturned with curious fingers and never-ending questions. He welcomed her challenging statements and forceful arguments, as if he was a blacksmith with a raw iron in his hands, forging it into a lethal weapon to conquer the beautiful world. 

When she created, he knew that he was a part of it. 

When she painted, he was the gesso soaked into the canvas, the camel hair of the brush stuck in between the layers of glaze, or maybe the turpentine mixed with thick oils. He glistened like a top coat varnish reflecting bright light of a sunny room and was present in the trembling fingers managing skinny brush marks into a small signature and date. 

When she took photographs, he was in a multiple shutter click of her camera, in a zoom of the shot and in a black frame of artful composition. 

When she wrote a story, he was in spaces between the letters and in the grammatical errors of her sentences. Her paragraphs were held together by the buttresses of his encouragement, as the paintings were supported by an easel and a camera stood on a tripod. 

Acting as a dedicated doctor, who hovers over his weak recovering patient, he administered his medicine carefully. He refrained from poisonous criticism and injected into her life stream a miraculous dose of fortitude on a daily basis. Her optimism and confidence grew viciously. Her strength was like an onion when peeled. A layer upon layer is discovered, each one more powerful than the last one.  

Then one day, she grew up...

When she flew away, he wept loudly like Kochanowski after his beloved Ursula, without anyone hearing his voice. Her absence removed his vocal cords and made him a mute. He had nothing to say anymore and the steaming temperature of his heated conversations became freezing cold. She was his prism through which he was able to see the world as a beautiful and a just place but he became blind the instance she disappeared from his life.   

The memory of his little girl was the only sustaining element of his life and the beat up old boxes full of photographs were the only food keeping his soul alive..."

MY DAD, MY HERO!